Project description
Exploring enslaved Muslims’ contribution to cross-cultural exchange
From the late 16th century, enslaved Muslims (mainly North Africans, Turks, and Moriscos) were present in Mediterranean port towns. Most worked as rowers on galleys, some were sold as domestic slaves, and others were traded for Christian prisoners. Their movement facilitated cross-cultural exchange. The ERC-funded UNSEEN project will explore various sources across five countries, three continents, and seven languages, including archival documents, printed materials, and artefacts from Europe and the Middle East. The project aims to reveal the role of enslaved Muslims in introducing Islamic material culture, techniques, and medical practices to early modern Europe. It will unify fragmented local micro-histories into a comprehensive narrative of Mediterranean global history by analysing sources in Arabic, English, French, Italian, Latin, Ottoman, and Spanish.
Objective
From the late sixteenth century, enslaved Muslims were found across Mediterranean Europe, hosted in all major port towns in France, Spain and Italy. Mainly North Africans, Turks and Moriscos seized in the Mediterranean during the skirmishes between Christian and Ottoman forces, their movements and activities left traces across many European and Middle Eastern archives. Some were sold to become domestic slaves, some were traded in exchange for Christian prisoners in Islamic land, while the majority were employed to row on board the galleys. Their hybrid position, spanning geographical and cultural boundaries, allowed them to move across two worlds, in some cases literally importing goods and medical remedies from Islamic lands to Europe. During periods of non-navigation, they were allowed on land to set up shops and sell to the local population, in a virtually unexplored phenomenon of cross-cultural exchange.
This transnational and interdisciplinary project will investigate an array of sources in five countries, three continents and seven languages, spanning from archival documents, printed sources, literary evidence and material survivals across Europe and the Middle East. Its goal is to recover the role of Muslim slaves in the transmission of Islamic material culture, techniques, and medical practices to Europe in the early modern period. UNSEEN will bring for the first time under a unifying macro-narrative of Mediterranean global history the myriad of single local micro-histories fragmented along regional, linguistic and disciplinary divides. An ERC Starting Grant will allow a team of researchers to analyse the bountiful traces left by those enslaved individuals in Spanish, French, Italian, English, Latin, Ottoman, and Arabic sources and reassign to them the role of triggers of the first European engagement with the artistic, technical, and medical production of the Islamic world, placing them at the centre of a Mediterranean-wide knowledge network.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- humanities history and archaeology history
- humanities philosophy, ethics and religion religions islam
- social sciences law human rights human rights violations human trafficking
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2024-STG
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OX1 2JD Oxford
United Kingdom
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